The Senate reconvened and resumed post-cloture consideration of Democrats’ jobs bill, H.R. 2847. However, the rumblings in Washington, D.C. are about the president's push to pass health-care bill before the Democrats potentially loose control of Congress after the 2010 elections. They may loose control of Congress because in their arrogance they have ignored the majority of American voters who do not like the Big Government take over of their health care or the the run-away spending and excessive national debt. Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said, “As we meet here in Washington this week, unemployment continues to hover around 10%, tens of millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, the national debt is at a staggering all-time high — and in response to all this, the administration wants lawmakers to go down to the White House to talk about a health care bill that Americans have already resoundingly rejected.”
In fact, many news reports today seem to agree that President Obama’s new health care proposal, which is supposed to be the starting point for a bipartisan summit “didn’t include any additional nods to Republican ideas” and “was short on new ideas,” but does feature “more spending” and “deeper cuts to Medicare.” The Hill writes, “Obama’s proposal was not the blank slate demanded by the GOP and was short on new ideas aimed at winning their support.” The Washington Post editors agree: “For all the happy talk about Thursday’s ‘bipartisan’ health-care summit, President Obama’s ‘opening bid’ on health reform is not designed to entice Republicans to join the game.”
Indeed, it appears the White House has reaffirmed its support for more of the same bad ideas from the House and Senate health care bills, which were written by Democrats. The Wall Street Journal reports, “Instead of paring his ambitions, as some in the White House had recommended, the president proposed a new plan based on what the Senate passed in December, adding more spending, more subsidies and a revised mix of taxes.” The editors at the WSJ take a dim view of this approach, writing, “It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill.”
But that’s not all. Even the editorial page at the Chicago Tribune can’t believe the bad ideas being pushed by Obama in this latest proposal: “So what is he offering the GOP in his revised health care reform plan, released Monday? Price controls. Yes, price controls. Faced with critics opposed to a great expansion of federal spending on, and control of, health care and health insurance, Obama decided to demand an even bigger role for Washington.”
And Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak, who championed an amendment to the original House health care bill to prevent public funding of abortions, today released a statement saying, “Unfortunately, the President's proposal encompasses the Senate language allowing public funding of abortion. The Senate language is a significant departure from current law and is unacceptable.”
As Sen. McConnell said today, “The American people thought the debate on this approach to reform was over. They issued their verdict on the substance of the Democrat health care bills and the process that was used to try to force them on the public. Yet here we are, once again, being told by the White House that we have to consider the same health care bills that caused such a backlash across the country in December. So Democrats either aren’t listening to the American people, or they’re going down the same road they’ve gone down again and again over the past year: put a bill together behind closed doors, then try to force it through Congress along a party line vote and ultimately onto a public that doesn’t want it.”
Tags: US Congress, US House, US Senate, Washington D.C. To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
0 comments:
Post a Comment